Snow!

Wednesday, 13 March, 2013

Guten Abend!

St Ann's Church

We’ve had a fairly cold and snowy day here in Munich!  But it started early – we found a laundry – yes, folks, this is a laundry day! – fairly close to the hotel.  Actually, it was three tram stops in toward the city and once off the tram, Robert led us straight to the Laundromat!  We had it to ourselves for a short time – but by the time we left, several people had come in with wet laundry – and only used the dryers!  Not too hard to figure out what to do; fortunately, the instructions were also in English.  No problem getting the laundry done, but the dryers left a little to be desired.  Dried for 40 minutes, and finally decided it could finish back in our warm hotel room.  So, back on the tram, and to the hotel and back by about 9.  Hung things up on the towel drying rack, and headed down to breakfast.  We now have more than enough clothes to make it back to Arizona!  Always a good thing!  

Roman mosaic floor

Roman helmet

Roman "family room"

Roman mosaic

Out again, and heading to our first museum – the Archeological Museum.  I have to be honest here.  We have seen some of the most wonderful museums imaginable – this one wasn’t one of those.  While it was titled “archeological” the majority of the museum was given over to the 30 Years War – which I hadn’t even heard of until we hit Prague!  And to be honest, after reading through the displays, I’m surprised there was any of Europe even left by the time the different countries got through fighting over  it!  There were some quite lovely Roman mosaics, and several frescoes that were well displayed, but all in all, definitely not a museum one needs to see. 

Egyptian sculpture

Rameses II

As it turns out, the museum was on the edge of the English Garden – where Robert maintains people like to run around naked – although how he knows this, I’m not sure – but I can absolutely guarantee you that NOBODY was running around the garden today unless they were extremely well dressed!  However, we did see a guy in a wet suit and a boogie board, which surprised us greatly – followed his dripping footprints, and realized that there was a really huge rushing stream running through the Garden – and there was another guy, also in wet suit getting on his boogie board!  They must be CRAZY!

A snowy day in Munich

From there, we headed to the Egyptian Museum.  Again, very, very poor collection, and absolutely not a word of English anywhere!  (I don’t mind that there aren’t things in English, but feel that there should either be a second language other than German (which there wasn’t) or audioguides available for the non-German speakers (which there weren’t).  So – went through the collection fairly quickly, as it is a small collection – and then back outside into the cold!

We stopped for a bit of quiche at the market next to the Marien Platz, then headed back to the hotel for restorative naps – and to see how dry our clothes are!  Pretty dry, actually!

Tomato soup (yet again!)

Onion soup

Out again about 6 and over to last night’s restaurant, La Brasserie, for dinner.  It is snowing and sticking, but there is only an inch or so accumulation; it looks pretty coming down though!  Had the same table as last night, and had another wonderful meal!  For starters, I had their French onion soup, which was terrific.  So many times it is served with WAY too much cheese – you have to quarry through the cheese to get to the soup, which is usually WAY too hot to eat, but this was perfect!  Robert had their tomato soup again.  For mains, I had Robert’s chicken dish of last night – chicken breast slices served on grilled vegetables – it was fabulous!  Robert had Loup de Mer – Wolf of the Sea fish (actually an eel, not too different from Congrio) – and he said it was great, also served with boiled potatoes and more grilled vegetables.  We ended dinner with Trou Normand for Robert (green apple sorbet with Calvados) and I had their chocolate cake – YUM!

Chicken and grilled vegetables

Loup de Mer

Then back to the hotel, turning on the TV just in time to see the announcement of the new Pope Francis I; he looks like a much nicer person that Benedict, who I never did like…Also, it’s now Arsenal, the English football team, playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League, and Arsenal is leading 1-0! Considering that the game is being played here in Munich, and the weather has been cold and wet all day, the field looks to be in remarkable shape!

More later!

m

xxx

Green apple sorbet with Calvados

Gateau